Tithonus: A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A re-telling of a Greek myth from an interesting angle

Born in 1809, the son of a disinherited, embittered and often drunk parish rector, he was home-educated before going to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became part of a circle of young intellectuals known as the “Apostles”. A particular friend, Arthur Hallam, died suddenly in 1833 and inspired Tennyson to write “In Memoriam”, one of his greatest poems (completed in 1850).

Tennyson had begun writing poetry at an early age and continued to do so throughout his life — he died in 1892 at the age of 83. He was held in very high esteem by his fellow Victorians, including Queen Victoria herself, who appointed him Poet Laureate in 1850 on the death of William Wordsworth and elevated him to the House of Lords as Baron Tennyson in 1884.

Although his reputation as a poet has not always been at the height it enjoyed during his lifetime and into the early part of the 20th century, some of his poems have enjoyed lasting fame, not least The Charge of the Light Brigade, written in 1854 when the Crimean War was still being fought.

Tithonus

The poem was originally written in 1833 with the title “Tithon”, but revised and re-published in the “Cornhill Magazine” in 1860. It is a dramatic…